4. Ebbinghaus: Psychology has
a short history, but a long
past.

5. Three fields that influenced psychology:
 Philosophy-writings
about sleep,
dreams, senses and memory.

6.  Physiology-study of anatomy and brain
function.

7.  Medicine-relationship
between disease
and mental processes.

8.  Two major schools of psychology by
early 20th century:
 1)Psychodynamic, based on the work
of Sigmund Freud.

10. Psychodynamic theory (continued)
Human behavior motivated by
unconscious conflicts
The past is critical to development

11. Second major school of psych:
Behaviorism-the study of behavior that
can be measured and verified.
Rejected the study of mental processes

12. Modern definition of psychology:
 The
science of behavior and mental
processes.

13. Other major perspectives in psychology:
1) Biological: the physical origins of
human and animal behavior, the
study of the nervous system, the brain.

14. 2)Humanistic: how people grow
psychologically
 the influence of interpersonal
relationships,
 the importance of self-direction in
trying to reach one’s potential

15. 3) Positive psychology: focus on positive
emotions and psychological
states, instead of the traditional focus
on problems and disorders.

16. 4) Cognitive: how people develop
language, solve problems, and think

17. 5) Cross-cultural: the influence of culture
on behavior and mental processes.
Some of your “personal” traits might be
cultural traits instead!

18. 6) Evolutionary: based on the principle
of natural selection (survival of the
fittest).
Behavior is subject to natural selection.

20. Dr. Bishop’s definition of critical thinking:
Be open to the possibility that what you
believe or what someone else believes
is CRAP.

21. Be aware of what you bring to the table,
we all have biases and “weak spots”

22. What conclusions can reasonably be
drawn from the evidence?

23. Is there another explanation that makes
more sense for a research finding or
some other phenomena?

24. Steps in the scientific method:
1) Start with a testable hypothesis, a
tentative statement that describes the
relationship between two or more
variables.

25. 2) Design the study and collect the data
Two basic categories of research
methods:
a) Descriptive methods-observing and
describing

26. Common descriptive methods:
Surveys
Naturalistic observation
Correlational studies

27. b) Experimental method: changing one
variable causes change in a second
variable.
Much harder to do, but can prove
cause and effect!

28. 3) Analyze the data and draw
conclusions
Findings have to be statistically
significant
Significant isn’t necessarily meaningful!

29. 4) Report the findings:
Other scientists need to be able to
replicate the findings
Findings are reported at conferences
and professional journals

30. Experimental Method
Why is it needed to prove cause and
effect?

31. Hypothesis: Drug X causes memory loss
in some people.
Independent variable (IV): what gets
manipulated
Dependent variable (DV): what gets
measured

32.  Control group: Subjects who go
through the experiment but are not
exposed to the actual variable of
interest.

33. Random assignment: you can’t control
for everything!
All subjects have an equal chance of
being in the experimental group or the
control group.
Helps to even out “outliers”

34. Without random assignment and a
control group, it’s not an experiment!
Can’t use the word cause!

35. Hypothesis: Cigarette smoking causes
cancer in humans.
Can you do an experiment?

36. No experiment, can only look at pre-
existing smokers
No random assignment!
Surveys, hospital records, gov’t records,
etc.

37.  Correlational study: very common in
psychology
 We have to study pre-existing groups
 How strongly two variables are related

38.  Positivecorrelation: two factors
increase or decrease together
 Ex: Anger and heart rate, loneliness
and depression
 Negative correlation: two factors move
in opposite directions
 Ex: alcohol use and grade point avg.